Instruction Deconstruction

Since Sifu first told me to teach, I have been asked to do it several times, I even had the opportunity to teach in Austria. Yet last night was the first time I was asked to teach a basic. I was always puzzled that the first thing I taught was erluquan and not, say caijiao, but after teaching both xubu and yiluquan last night, I can say teaching a form is actually much less daunting than teaching a basic. What I realized is that, since forms are composed of basics, learning them is more about learning transitions and rhythm than learning a new movement. Teaching an yiluquan I can say, "Next you go into a pubu." and that makes sense. But teaching a xubu, or any basic, you are teaching someone an entirely new movement, asking them to move/hold their bodies in an entirely new way. And if you are bad at articulating an explanation of the move, the student can't possibly be expected to understand it. I now have an even greater respect for the people who taught me my basics and their ability to clarify each move for me as I slowly caught on. Now, I must slowly catch on to how best to teach others.

Another, un-looked for, difficulty in teaching is needing water. I have gotten a lot better about controlling my water intake, and have as yet, never asked for a break. But when teaching, all the talking aggrivates my already dry mouth to a point where my tongue is sticking to my teeth and my instructions are all but unintelligible. Perhaps it will force me to ramble less and be more concise in my instructions!

Magic Mirror on the Wall....

Before training I always try to do a few ceshoufans while warming up, particularly on my left side, to get my body warmed up and break through that initial intimidation before I have to do bawang zakuis in class. Yesterday I moved down to the other end of the carpet so that I could watch myself do them in the mirror. Admittedly, my attempts to watch myself probably threw off my form a little bit, but it was amazing to see how different it looked from how it felt.

Often I see someone not extending or not straightening their leg and I think, "How can you still be doing X after you've been taught a dozen times not to do it?" But then I remember I still fight to have a straight leg in my gongbus and I've literally been doing them since day one. The trouble is feeling something versus seeing it. My leg feels honest to god straight. I feel my knee locking. but when I look in the mirror I see that is not the case, and I see why I'm still getting called at in line.

That is what happened with my ceshoufan. I never thought they were stellar, but I did feel they were improving. But watching them in the mirror I now see many of the sources of my problems and lots of new problems to sort out. Funnily enough, this didn't bother me. Instead it made me happy to have finally been able to identify specific problems in my form instead of hearing the inspiring but often vague go-to command of "Extend!" I'm much more comfortable having things to work on when I can see exactly what they are instead of hoping against hope that I'm correcting something the right way. Hopefully, now that I can see it I will eventually get to the point where I CAN feel the difference and I won't need the mirror anymore to tell me what 's going on.

Dork on Stage!

Our own Leo will be in this show The Moonlight Room next month.


Let's go give him chi!

Wall Stretch? Anyone?

Poorooop.... Pooorooop... Poorooooooop...

(That's cricket sound in Thailand.)

What happened to the good old wall stretch or just helping each other stretch in general? Is it because we are too lazy to clean up the walls and mirror after the class? Is it because self-stretch benefits more? Is it because we don't want to touch other people's stinky hairy legs?

Two years ago when I first started, I thought it was mandatory to help other people stretch. Now it looks like stretching alone is preferable.

I like to wall stretch because I think my flexibility improved significantly because of it and also because I get to learn people names and then torture them...

Can anybody tell my why we wall stretched at the first place? And now we don't do it that much anymore?

Poorooop.... Pooorooop... Poorooooooop...

Quadruple Happiness!

Though I was exhausted when it started, here are four reasons why today was good, in chronological order:

1. At the end of the day, I found out from my boss that I received the maximum possible raise and

2. maximum bonus possible at work. This is fantastic.

3. During training tonight, Heng Han had us do this lovely move in line -- a Ceshoufan in place, 5 times. What came to mind was a needle and thread, sewing ahead a little bit, but always backtracking as reinforcement -- move ahead, sure, but keep the foundation strong. And it also made me think of how the universe folds back into itself, and joyfully re-discovers itself anew each time. As I flipped around over and over, I kept thinking, "That's where I was! And here I am! And there I go!" but I was going everywhere and nowhere. It didn't feel like I ever really strayed much from the space on the carpet containing my cartwheels, but still I felt like I was infinitely expansive -- like scuba diving, or elation.

4. We started Xiaohongquan tonight. It felt beautiful, raising your arm, making fists, keeping them tight and close, and dingbu, and gongbu, and gongbu, and that quick shift, chambered hands, it felt really good.

Icing was getting to see some of what Cheng, Richu and De learned in Austria. Sprinkles on the icing is that my fatigue and bedtime are currently aligned. Quadruple happy good nights!

Homecoming

After a long flight with multiple delays, the Austria crew landed late Monday afternoon. We had an amazing time and have lots of stories to share, but really I recommend everyone take the trip themselves because really there's no way to convey the experience without being there yourself, well, experiencing it. But-

I am sooooooooo happy to be back! Last night I rolled into training at my usual time of 6:00 and was surprised and excited to see there were already several students there. After a big Amituofo from Sifu and Randy, whom haven't gotten to train with in some time, I was in a off the wall fantastic mood and couldn't wait for class to start.

Start we did and it was FAST! Austria training is definitely much slower, but I had so much adrenaline going that the speed perfectly matched my energy level. You'd think after two weeks of traveling and training, and essentially five weeks of various combined vacation, I'd be ready for a little recuperation time. Instead, this was one of the best classes ever. There were so many people training there was barely room on the carpet for us all once teaching was underway! It simply felt so good to be home and to see everyone I've been missing that my chi was through the roof. So amituofo to everyone! There's no place like home!

Synchronized 二路拳

Are the stars beginning to align? Or is there some magical chi mist that has descended upon our fellow brethren at the Shaolin Temple? For the past few level 1 classes, especially in the daytime, I've noticed that most of the regular level 1 folks are either done or almost done learning erluquan. This could mean that there will be a unprecedented (my exaggeration probably) number of people testing erluquan. By my count, there could be about 14 of us.

It's very fascinating and rewarding to go through a process with the same group of people. I know that Cheng, Mo, and Qbertplaya (edit. -- and Sucheela!) went through a similar experience last Fall when they were all preparing to test erluquan and were helping each other to ignite the chi. You form a very special bond. Like when we were all freshmen in high school walking into the cafeteria for the first time. We just naturally gravitate towards each other and cower sit at the same table.

By having a large group, it's also has been a wonderful way to polish our own techniques by watching others perform the same movements over and over again. For us daytime folks, we are even more lucky, because we get to have Shifu watch and teach us erluquan. In fact, it's not uncommon to see more than two people working on the form at the same time. And on those rarest of occasions, a 4-person synchronized erluquan.

It's All in the Hips

Before I left for the Christmas holidays I was doing battle with some pretty angry shenanigans in my hips/hip flexors. I've had trouble there before, but after a while it eventually passed. With the more rigorous training I've been engaging in since October the pain came back with a vengeance. It pretty well prevented me from being able to get up from a straddle stretch in less than three minutes, impaired my ability to transition stances (say: gongbu-mabu), and pretty much made sweeping a worse challenge than usual. After two weeks off at Christmas, I came back to a rested, un-sore body which included happy hips, hooray! But since we've been training in Austria the devil, crunchy, cracking pains are back. And now they even hurt during ceshoufans, and we know I didn't need anything making those worse. So now what?!?

I feel like my hip problems sound like most other people's knee problems. I'm never had a bit of pain in my knees (knock on wood) but my hip joints have been a concern nearly from day one. I am thinking maybe it's a genetic predisposition as my sister also had to quit running because her hips gave her so much trouble and the doctor told her they couldn't handle the impact. But then, I have done many other sports, one of which was volleyball and if that doesn't impact your joints I don't know what will. Either way, am I doomed to be locked in an eternal battle with this part of my body? Am I never going to be good at latin dancing? Should I pop a certain painkiller? Stretch a different way? Go get acupuncture? Or is it too late and I should just cut off my legs at the hip? That's going to make bringing back mad Austrian skills rather difficult.......

Takin' it back Old School

Austrian Update: Last night, Heng Xin, Heng Yi, and the entire performance team were out at a mini seminar so Level 2 was about half its usual size, and Heng De ended up being called upon to teach the class. It was fun to train USA style in the temple and I think the Austrian folks enjoyed mixing things up as well.

I felt called on to represent, and ended up leading the line. I loved starting off going straight into caijiaos- here they do lots of running and hopping first. And I felt more in my comfort zone in this more familiar routine. For some reason, though, about halfway through class my chi just wasn't there. I've been struggling lately with feeling weak and choking from lack of confidence, in my head I know that it's silly, but I've lost all faith in my arms to hold me up, feel totally pop-less in my kicks, and cannot maintain my balance on anything from long Level 2 movements to a gongbu or waibaitui. I hear Sifu in my brain telling me to relax, let it go, don't get upset, (Heng Yi says, "Stay happy!") and I want to, but it just has been difficult lately.

The last half of class helped cure me. I did kip ups: for forty minutes. I kipped and kipped and kipped, and while I never got UP, it felt a lot better by the end. Maybe pounding my back into the floor over and over and over again released all the tension, or maybe I just got really determined because everyone here can do the kip up and I want to get it too. But once class was over and I was kipped-out, I felt a lot less strained than I did at the beginning. The guy teaching me, whose name I didn't catch, told me, "It looks very close, you are just really tired now; you never know, the next time you do it might be the time you get it." And that is an inspiring thought.

Break-neck speed

Austrian Update: Yesterday In the evening Heng Xin took the three of us to go see the Shaolin tour performing in Vienna. As many of you may know Xin is a CR-azy driver, which was super fun (see Richu's blog for more), but having my head whipped back into my headrest repeatedly did nothing to help a neck injury I sustained in training and I woke up this morning with a vary sore/stiff neck.

Here in Vienna they have jumping class on saturdays right after training, then advanced tumbling at 5. We stayed for the first one, which was mostly basic rolls, then some head flips and liyu dating. Doesn't sound too hard right? Alas, for me it was.

One of the jumps is a diving roll. Some of the folks here jump super high, perpendicular to the floor, head down, then go into the roll. I definitely found this a little intimidating, my constant fear in things like that is breaking my neck. But I figured I used to swim, I used to play volleyball, I understand the mechanics of diving and rolling. Unfortunately, either I'm even more uncoordinated than I think or my arms were just too tired from training to adequately support a diving roll, but they totally gave out and I landed, hard, on my head/neck/shoulder. Yi and Richu were both watching and apparently it looked pretty bad. I shook it off ok but I was definitely leery of my jumping for the rest of the class, and my head flips were just somersaults.

I was talking about it afterwards, and I realized that my fear of getting injured is probably part of why I got injured, as it causes me to hesitate in my movement. But I don't know if having it happen has made my fear worse or helped me get over it because now I know I won't actually die.... Either way, I'm giving my neck a break today so it doesn't get actually broken.